Intercultural, Pragmatic, and Interactional Competence (IPIC) Measure

Levels: High school, university

Languages: Chinese, Spanish

Cost: Free of charge during pilot

We at CASLS believe language is more than vocabulary and grammar. Our curriculum materials help students learn how to understand context, create the meanings they intend, and build relationships with speakers of other languages. These later functions of language are difficult to assess.

Our Intercultural, Pragmatic, and Interactional Competence (IPIC) Measure helps assess students’ abilities to use the target language appropriately in multilingual interactions. It is the first assessment of its kind to combine intercultural, pragmatic, and interactional constructs.

The IPIC Measure uses digital simulations to determine students’ abilities to navigate intercultural encounters with varying power and social distance using the target language. The intercultural assessment simulation allows for an individualized experience and accounts for language variation. It then creates a learner profile based on four dimensions critical to language competence: knowledge, analytical abilities, subjectivity, and awareness.

An intercultural assessment alone cannot help students develop the type of communicative proficiency we believe is the heart of language learning. The IPIC Measure’s accompanying professional development materials, which will be posted here as they become available, support educators in creating a classroom environment that allows learners the opportunity to practice the art of communication.

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CASLS

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